Ten Paths of the Master - Chapter 10

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 10. A Son Born of the Heart
Dan Yeop listened to Jeon Jung in silence, then asked in a flat tone.
“So I’m Dan Yeop—that much is clear. What about you two? What are your names?”
“I’m Jeon Jung, and that’s Deung Pyeong. Why? Are you going to run straight to Director Dan and tattle? ‘The third generation won’t treat us seniors with respect, punish them please’?”
Jeon Jung teased in a childish voice, and Deung Pyeong snickered beside him.
Dan Yeop let out a light sigh of exasperation.
“Hah! Is Amun always like this?”
This time Deung Pyeong spoke up.
“What do you mean?”
“You have no respect or consideration for seniors?”
“We do—except when it comes to you.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’re thick-headed. You’ve spent more than ten years and haven’t learned a single technique from Yukmun Martial Arts. You haven’t completed your Chulgwan, so you’ll be stuck at Byeongma Chong forever. Who’s going to respect you? Even the seniors who passed their Chulgwan don’t consider you their peer. In Byeongma Chong, ‘when will you achieve Chulgwan?’ matters more than ‘when did you arrive.’ It’s obvious you’ll complete it later than we do in the third generation. How can someone like you expect senior treatment?”
Dan Yeop, who had been listening with an unmoved expression, opened his mouth.
“Everything you said is right except for two things.”
“What’s wrong then?”
“First, I’m not thick-headed. Second, I have learned Yukmun Martial Arts.”
“Pfft! That’s just what you think. Nobody in Byeongma Chong sees it that way. You didn’t get the nickname Stone Monkey for nothing.”
“I can’t very well crack open my skull to prove it. How can I make you believe me?”
Deung Pyeong, who had been waiting for a chance to deal with Dan Yeop like Ma Geol had, saw his opening.
“Words are cheap. You suddenly sound confident about martial arts, so come at me. There’s nothing more certain than testing it body to body. Right?”
“Come at you?”
“Why, afraid? Scared you’ll get hit?”
At that, Dan Yeop shook his head slowly.
“No, that’s not it. But I’m still your senior—how can I come at you? You should come at me. If you’re so confident, then you come.”
At the unexpected reply, Deung Pyeong stared at Jeon Jung in disbelief.
“What the hell—you hear that? Stone Monkey’s finally lost it. The guy who couldn’t even look us in the eye now wants me to come at him?”
“Haha! They say a stick is the cure for madness. Let’s knock some sense into him.”
“Yeah, he needs to learn what the third generation is made of.”
With that, Deung Pyeong charged at Dan Yeop like a shot.
Talented children at Byeongma Chong trained in Beontcheon Ssu; the rest learned Hoahak Ssangsukwon.
Deung Pyeong was among the latter.
After seven years of training, Deung Pyeong’s movements were swift and sharp.
He unleashed left and right strikes aimed at Dan Yeop’s head.
Whoosh! Whizz—!
Dan Yeop tilted his head to slip the punches, then slapped the opponent’s face with an open palm.
With a sharp crack, Deung Pyeong tumbled backward.
He sprang up elastically, and with a sound of fury, charged again.
“You bastard!”
When Hoahak Ssangsukwon failed, he switched to Jinyuk Hapkwon.
He extended his left palm to obscure Dan Yeop’s vision, then struck like thunder with his right fist at the chest.
It was the fourth move of Jinyuk Hapkwon—Eomil Pasuk, which “veils the sun and shatters stone.”
In that instant, Dan Yeop used Biryu Bo, flowing like water to the side and evading the strike.
Again came the sharp crack as Deung Pyeong tumbled backward.
This time the impact was considerable; Deung Pyeong did not get up immediately.
Jeon Jung’s mouth went dry at the unexpected turn of events.
‘What is happening here?’
From what he knew, Deung Pyeong and Ma Geol were roughly equal in martial skill.
Dan Yeop had been beaten by Ma Geol, so he should have been beaten by Deung Pyeong too.
But the result was the opposite.
As Jeon Jung stood there anxious, Dan Yeop’s voice reached his ear.
“Jeon Jung, you should test yourself against me as well.”
Jeon Jung, whose martial skill was weaker than Deung Pyeong’s, immediately backed down.
“Senior Dan, we were ignorant of your abilities just now. If we had known you had mastered Yukmun Martial Arts, we would never have said such nonsense.”
“Ha, quick to change tune, aren’t you?”
“I’m sincere. Deung Pyeong should have come to his senses by now. Deung Pyeong, get up and apologize to Senior Dan. This is entirely our fault.”
As Jeon Jung suddenly pulled Deung Pyeong into it, Deung Pyeong reluctantly got to his feet, shuffling.
“……I apologize.”
“Let’s do better from now on. I’ll be watching.”
Deung Pyeong and Jeon Jung answered in unison to Dan Yeop’s gentle warning.
“Yes.”
Once Deung Pyeong and Jeon Jung bowed, Dan Yeop stopped pressing them further.
“My adoptive father is a martial arts instructor, isn’t he?”
Jeon Jung answered quickly on behalf of the dazed Deung Pyeong.
“Yes, he is the martial arts instructor of Amun.”
“Take me to him.”
“…Take you there?”
Jeon Jung found himself echoing the words, studying Dan Yeop’s expression without meaning to.
Show him the way to a place he’d wandered in and out of countless times over the past twelve years?
He couldn’t fathom what Dan Yeop was thinking.
“What—do you not want to?”
“No, no—of course. Follow me.”
Jeon Jung muttered under his breath about the cruelty of weakness as he led the way.
***
Amun Practice Hall.
When Dan Yeop finished his account, Instructor Dan Bulwi looked utterly baffled.
“So you’re telling me you came to your senses in some remote stone chamber to the north, and you have no memory of who you are at all?”
“Yes.”
“You remember the Yukmun Martial Arts and the books you read in the Library, but nothing about yourself?”
“That’s correct.”
“Huh! Extraordinarily strange… wait. Could this be a side effect of the Bunsimgong?”
Dan Yeop, who had learned about it from Jeok Song-ja, replied with deliberate naïveté.
“Could it be the Bunsimgong that caused it?”
“You fool! Didn’t I tell you the Bunsimgong was dangerous and not to practice it? Why would you train in such a ridiculous technique and ruin your body!”
“Well, Father—but it hasn’t only damaged my body.”
……
Dan Bulwi stared at Dan Yeop with a startled expression.
Twelve years ago, he had given names to three of the children he’d brought to Byeongma Chong: Dan Geum, Dan Jae, and Dan Yeop.
Those who knew this joked that he was the adoptive father of the three.
But the truth was that Dan Bulwi and Dan Geum, Dan Jae, and Dan Yeop were strangers to one another.
None of the three had ever once called him Father.
And yet, now—Father…
As Dan Bulwi stared blankly, Dan Yeop quickly offered an explanation.
“My mind has become extraordinarily sharp. I have mastered all the Yukmun Martial Arts, and I remember every book I saw in the Library.”
For a moment, Dan Bulwi was even more astonished by this than by Dan Yeop calling him Father.
“Is that truly so?”
“Yes.”
Dan Bulwi, regarding Dan Yeop with skeptical eyes, spoke.
“Then recite the teachings of the Seven Wounds Sabre Method.”
“The first blade wounds the Yin, shattering the foundation of breath. The second blade tears the Yang, collapsing the structure of form. The third blade scatters the breath, shaking the barriers. The fourth blade breaks the form, dividing flesh and bone. The fifth blade severs the spirit, releasing the soul. The sixth blade cuts the life-gate, ending existence. The seventh blade returns with heaven and earth, burying both foe and self together. The Seven Wounds arise again from Yin and Yang breath, and from form, spirit, and life—”

Dan Yeop’s recitation flowed without pause, the teachings of the Seven Wounds Sabre Method pouring forth.
Dan Bulwi’s expression shifted several times as he listened in silence.
Dan Yeop had always been a somewhat special child to him.
The scar on the four-year-old’s neck remained as a wound mark even now, at sixteen.
Dan Bulwi had long sensed, albeit dimly, what it meant.
A pitiful wretch who had been next to useless was now reciting the Yukmun Martial Arts by rote!
Yet mere recitation was not the end of it.
When Dan Yeop finished his recitation, Dan Bulwi demanded something more.
“Demonstrate it.”
Dan Yeop rose from his seat and drew a Jikdo from where it hung on the practice hall wall.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he immediately unfolded the Seven Wounds Sabre Method.
From the first form, Chosang Eumheo, to the final seventh form, it flowed seamlessly like water.
Wheeeak! Wheee-aack—!
Each time the Jikdo cut through the air, an eerie shriek of displaced wind echoed through the practice hall.
The sound was louder and sharper than when Dan Bulwi demonstrated it before his students.
When the demonstration ended, Dan Yeop carefully returned the Jikdo to its place on the wall.
Sensing the evenness of Dan Yeop’s breathing, Dan Bulwi silently clicked his tongue in amazement.
‘Remarkable! Even I cannot steady my breath to such a degree.’
To complete such a ferocious sabre form and emerge in such perfect calm!
“What do you think?”
Dan Yeop posed the question, and Dan Bulwi answered with an emphatic nod.
“Excellent! Truly excellent! This year you’ll be ready for Chulgwan.”
“Actually, I was thinking of putting off the Chulgwan examination for a while.”
“What? Why?”
“I’d like to train more here.”
Dan Yeop studied Dan Bulwi’s expression carefully.
Staying at Byeongma Chong would require his cooperation, after all.
Fortunately, Dan Bulwi offered no objection.
He himself had taken root there for the sake of training.
“Very well, I’ll handle that matter myself. But the memories you’ve lost—do you think you can recover them?”
“Perhaps.”
“That’s reassuring. Still, don’t become too fixated on it. Like water flowing naturally, the best results come when you let things unfold at their own pace.”
“Yes, Father.”
At another echo of “Father,” Dan Bulwi cleared his throat and spoke.
“Ahem. And about calling me Father all this time—”
Dan Bulwi explained how he’d somehow come to be called the adoptive father of three children.
Hearing this, Dan Yeop’s face fell slightly.
“So I’m not even your adoptive son? Ah! Neither the Sect Leader’s son nor your son either. It all feels rather hollow somehow.”
“Who told you that you were the Sect Leader’s son?”
“No one. It’s just that all of Yukmun Martial Arts are locked in my head, so I mistook myself for some sect leader’s heir. Turns out my life is just worthless scraps.”
Dan Bulwi felt a pang at Dan Yeop’s self-deprecating remark.
He was utterly changed from before.
Where once he’d been darkly brooding, almost sinister in his original form, the current Dan Yeop was exuberantly cheerful to an excessive degree.
Dan Bulwi found this version of him, stripped of his memories, pleasing.
More than anything, he coveted Dan Yeop’s overwhelming talent.
“Nonsense! If you wish it, you may call me Father.”
“Truly?”
“I gave you your name, and I’ve looked after you for twelve years. Now that I think of it, you, Dan Geum, and Dan Jae were like family to me.”
Dan Bulwi kept his face expressionless and embellished the past just a touch.
Half truth, half lies—but Dan Bulwi’s offer to Dan Yeop was sincere.
Sincerity finds its mark.
Dan Yeop, who needed something to lean on, rose to his feet and performed a deep bow to Dan Bulwi.
“Your unworthy son greets his father.”
“Haha! Yes, thank you. From now on, if you need anything, come to me anytime. You are my son, born of my heart—never hesitate.”
Dan Bulwi, mere martial instructor though he was, spoke with the grandeur of a nobleman.
Shortly after leaving the Amun Practice Hall, Dan Yeop made his way to the Quarters, asking for directions along the way.
The moment he saw the bed tucked away in a corner of the Stone Chamber, exhaustion rushed over him.
“I need to get some sleep first.”
He was so tired that the instant he lay down, he began snoring.
***
There were only twenty-five members in the third generation.
Before even half an hour had passed, rumors of “Deung Pyeong getting beaten by Dan Yeop” had spread everywhere.
Half an hour after Jeon Jung was struck, the leaders of the third generation—Baek Yuhwa, Lee Poong, and Yu Jacho—gathered in one place.
Baek Yuhwa, known as the strongest of the third generation, spoke coldly.
“We need to finish this revenge before the fourth generation hears about Deung Pyeong. Otherwise, they’ll start looking down on us third-generation disciples.”
Then Yu Jacho, his pockmarked face darkening, stepped forward.
“Leave it to me. I’ll make that Dan Yeop piss himself the moment he sees any of our third-generation faces.”
The man, harboring deep resentment toward handsome males, ground his teeth audibly.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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